


kinda sorta maybe, okay

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Almost Kiss, An Attempt Was Made At A Romantic Gesture, And Carol Danvers Is the One To Sweep Him, Banter, F/M, Future Fic, Guilt, Light Angst, Mention of Animal Death, Nick Fury Deserves To Be Swept Off His Feet, Nick Fury Feels, Post-Endgame, Pre-Relationship, Protective Carol Danvers, Regret, Reunions, This Will Soon Be Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 19:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18058703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: It was kind of what Carol wanted to do to Fury right now, berate him. Her first words as she stepped foot on her home planet revolved around him and her first new memory of the place included Captain fucking America telling her that Fury was nothing more than dust on the streets. Dust when she’d expected to see him, had been excited to see him. Perhaps that was a foolish thought. They’d only known each other for a short time in 1995. And then he’d remained quiet for over twenty years.She’d been serious when she said emergencies only, but not that serious. Not that she really knew how to say as much.





	kinda sorta maybe, okay

“You said you’d use the pager for emergencies only,” Carol said, barging into Fury’s office like she owned it. It was a little higher up in the building than she imagined it would be. Then again, it wasn’t really a surprise. Maybe more that he kept an office at all. He’d always struck her as the type to prefer field work and that impression remained. But she’d expected he would disdain an office entirely. Here his was though. Bright and polished steel. Thin screens across which all manner of secret information scrolled across. He didn’t bother trying to hide it and she, in turn, didn’t bother trying to read it. In the corner, there was a small pet bed, a tasteful gray. Orange fur coated the thing. Maybe an attempt was made to remove it. Once. Years ago. “Where’s the cat?”

Fury shrugged and kicked the heels of his boots onto the corner of his desk, a strong, masculine steel to match the trim. He looked so different from the way Carol remembered him looking. Back then, he was kind of a dork, a square, clad in an indifferently tailored black and white suit. The turn toward superhero chic worked for him, the severe leather giving him an edge he didn’t have before. She liked it, not that she’d hated what she was before. “Geese goes where he wants.”

“Geese?”

“Goose Two didn’t have the same ring to it,” he answered, clipped. It was hard to tell whether he was being snappish to be snappish or if he was snappish for a reason. “You’ve been gone a while. The new threads look good. Doesn’t say disgruntled teen anymore.”

She glanced down at the jeans and t-shirt she wore—along with her leather jacket, of course—and spared a thought for Goose and found herself missing the bastard just a little bit. For a Flerken, she’d been an okay cat. It wasn’t the time for it, but she bit back a smile at the eye patch Fury was wearing. He really should’ve gotten it checked out sooner than he did. The thing did look badass though. Just added to the mystique and mythology that he’d built around himself, she assumed.

What would Tony Stark think if he knew a cuddly looking cat was the source of the scars on Fury’s face? That was a secret she’d take with her to the grave. Her gift to Fury. This way he couldn’t say she never did anything for him.

But. More important things. Like figuring out why she’d only heard from him when half the galaxy was coming to an end.

“You didn’t call.” How the hell was Carol supposed to know she needed to come back otherwise? That was the whole point of that stupid pager. She’d been neck deep in Kree bullshit for years now. It might’ve been nice to do something else for a change. And if he wanted to be pissy at her, she could return the favor. Crossing her arms, she raised an eyebrow at him. “I got the rundown from Romanov. Sounds like you could’ve used an assist a time or two in there.”

“We managed well enough,” was all he was willing to say, but that didn’t quite get to the truth of it. “And you turned up when you were needed, right? Isn’t that what matters here?”

A lot of things mattered, but Carol didn’t have the words to express them all. And Fury wasn’t wrong. She and Fury’s little ring of heroes undid the damage Thanos had done to them all. Almost got away with it, too, nobody the worse for wear. Almost. But even Captain Marvel couldn’t be perfect and even between the lot of them, they hadn’t saved everyone. The world mourned those they lost here. Carol couldn’t help but think about the fact that the Kree might have put on a massive funeral for the fallen and then privately berated their memory because they died in the first place.

The best Kree warriors never died in battle, though they were always scrupulously honored for their sacrifice, of course.

It was kind of what Carol wanted to do to Fury right now, berate him. Her first words as she stepped foot on her home planet revolved around him and her first new memory of the place included Captain fucking America telling her that Fury was nothing more than dust on the streets. Dust when she’d expected to see him, had been excited to see him. Perhaps that was a foolish thought. They’d only known each other for a short time in 1995. And then he’d remained quiet for over twenty years.

She’d been serious when she said emergencies only, but not that serious. Not that she really knew how to say as much.

“If letting a bunch of children run around and get themselves hurt counts as managing…” Though that wasn’t fair. As far as she knew, Spider-Man was the only really, really young one doing what he was doing. Scott, well. Scott acted like a goofy kid half the time, she supposed. Cool powers, at least a handful of brain cells to rub together for a bit of lateral thinking, but… yeah. Not the most mature. “Then yeah. Great job.”

Fury frowned at her. She got the feeling he’d gotten used to that look scaring people into submission, but she knew him back in the day, knew how he felt, what he really meant. This didn’t faze her even though it was meant to. “I’m not sure what you want me to say here, Danvers. I get that we all have crosses to bear. Yours just took you halfway across the galaxy.”

“Further than that,” she replied. Then after a beat, “Hairsplitting. Sorry. I’ve been around…” Her point was lost for a moment when he smiled at her, just a small one, cracked and awkward, the first time she’d seen it in more years than she cared to count, and stiff in a way that suggested it might have been that long since he’d smiled at all. “Well, people who are way more into precision than we are.”

Some of them weren’t even people really, but there was time to catch up on all that later. For now, she just wanted…

She didn’t know what she wanted was the problem. Her instincts pulled her in so many different directions and none of them were better than the others. Her compass was usually better than this, guiding her in the direction she most needed to go. Her heart and mind were of a piece most of the time, but just being back here on Earth threw her into a tailspin. And if that wasn’t enough, seeing Fury again finished her off. She should eject, abort, retreat until she knew what she was doing and yet the thought of walking away now when she’d only just gotten him back, the dust of Titans settling instead of people, was untenable.

She couldn’t go. And she sure as hell couldn’t stay. Because though she recognized the man before her, she wasn’t sure she could bridge the distance between them. Twenty years and a galaxy changed things, but not enough that Carol didn’t want things she hadn’t wanted in a long, long time.

“It’s maybe not all that cool to admit,” he said, offhand, yet somehow serious, too, “and if you breathe a word of this to any of the chuckle heads you now associate with, I will somehow bust you back to private, but I’ve missed you. It’s just not the same when you’re not here to punch holes through space ships.” For a minute, he looked exactly as carefree as she remembered him being. Then the years fell back into place and he was more somber than she’d known he could be.

He was still every bit the man she’d come to admire.

Carol dared to let herself smile at him in response. It was more than she expected to hear out of him as far as admissions went and it gave her courage. “That was pretty awesome of me.”

“Now that I do recognize,” he said. He raised his hands to frame his temples. “What is it with you superheroes and the egos? How do you even get your heads through the door?”

“Practice.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder toward the door to Fury’s office. “Obviously.”

Fury barked a laugh, rusty from disuse, but recognizable to Carol as the same laugh from 1995. She wondered how many of the other Avengers—and wasn’t that name a kick in the teeth, the best kind of legacy to have left behind, sort of. That she’d left enough of an impression on him that he named this whole pet project after her. It was another thing that made her want to be daring. She wondered how many of them knew what that sounded like, his laugh. The most selfish places inside of her hoped it was hers and hers alone. The more selfless ones were scandalized that she would even think to wish him a humorless life without her.

“Why didn’t you call me back?” she asked again and this time the desperation in her tone made the question sound like something else, something she maybe wasn’t ready to admit to.

His eye widened as though trying to convey without words just how ridiculous he found her question. “You had shit to deal with. I wasn’t about to mess with that. Not when I made sure we’d manage without you. It was the least I could do.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed and he shook his head. “Don’t you go developing a complex on me, Danvers. You’re good, but you’re not that good.”

“But I am.” And that was mostly true. The years had only made her stronger, better, faster. She was deadlier and could do things she didn’t even know was possible when she’d first started this. She’d had to leave to learn those skills and she had to pay her debts, but that was done now. “And I’m back.”

“Stark’ll love that,” Fury answered, scoffing, but she heard pleasure in his voice, too, hidden though it was beneath the surface gruffness. “Y’all just don’t get into any pissing contests where I can see it and I’ll call that good enough.”

“No promises,” she replied, intending to do exactly that at the earliest opportunity, “but I’ll take you out to dinner afterwards to make up for it. I can’t not tweak the guy who needs a suit to fly. Who do you take me for?”

There was a moment where she wished she could swallow back those words, that clumsy, implied question inside of them.

Deadpan, he said, “I’m beginning to regret calling you.”

Flashing him a brilliant grin, certain she’d ruined everything and deciding to go for broke anyway, she reached across his desk and made a grab for his hand. It was probably taking a liberty and he treated it as such, jerking away from her slightly and glaring, but then he relaxed and let himself be pulled to his feet. “Why don’t I take you out to dinner now as a preemptive measure?” When he tried to decline, Carol yanked him close, closer than she intended because she actually managed to surprise him into stumbling into her. But that was okay. She had him. She’d always have him if she could. And even if she couldn’t, she’d watch his back. “You need someone to dislodge that stick up your ass.”

“Now I know you’ve been talking to Stark.”

“I think it was Bruce actually,” Carol mused. “But I came to that conclusion all on my own. When was the last time you relaxed because I know you don’t let yourself do that around the other Avengers. Romanov doesn’t even know about Goose and she says she’s worked with you just about the longest out of anyone who’s still around. That’s a sad, sad shame is what that is. No man is an island.”

“No one needs to know about Goose. What Goose and I had was no one’s business but our own—” Fury went rigid in Carol’s arms and maybe that was to be expected when she was so very carefully running her thumb over the ridge of each scar on his cheek, skimming the edge of the eye patch. “Danvers, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Removing the stick from your ass,” she replied. Fury wasn’t stupid though and she was pretty sure he could figure out what she intended to do as she slowly, so slowly, leaned in. She kept her eyes open though. “Unless you’re really that in to keeping it. In that case, pizza’s still on me, but I might refrain from kissing you.”

Fury’s eyebrow arched, but he didn’t pull away. That had to be a good sign. “You’re not even gonna take me some place nice?”

“I haven’t had pizza in twenty years. Are you planning on stopping me? I’m sure you know a decent place that’ll meet your expectations.” They were close enough now that Carol could smell the lingering scent of mint on Fury’s breath, making her wonder if he was a stickler for hygiene in the aftermath of the apocalypse or just liked to chew gum when people weren’t looking. She hoped to find out one day. “And when you do, I’ll pay.”

“I guess I’ve had worse offers in my time,” he said, but when Carol leaned that last little bit in, he pulled back. “But a gentleman doesn’t suck face before the first date. Doesn’t leave anything to look forward to.”

“Charming,” she replied, but she couldn’t stop from smiling now even if she wanted to. Her happiness bubbled inside of her, a champagne sweet version of what she felt when her powers awakened. “I’m glad you finally called. In case that wasn’t obvious.”

“Oh, it’s obvious.” His voice was wry and deeply amused, a vast improvement on the man she’d reacquainted herself with earlier, so much more stoic and surly and sad—though he probably would have hated her for thinking of it in that way, but she didn’t have a better way to describe the weariness she saw in him, bone deep and agonizing and hidden so very well from everyone else—than she remembered.

She didn’t let herself wonder what it might have been like if she’d been able to stay all these years. There was no shame in what she’d done, but she hated that she would have had regrets no matter what she did. Damned because she did, but would’ve been damned anyway. There was a chance here, though, to change that. To improve things. To make up for some lost time.

And eat pizza. That was definitely important, too. Maybe get to second base if she got lucky.

Possibly even make Fury happy if he’ll let her.

He seemed intrigued enough to give her a chance. Gesturing toward the door, he said, “After you, Captain.”

That was really all she needed.

The rest would work itself out.


End file.
